Surprised no one has mentioned this, but there’s an incredibly dangerous situation playing out at Mount Rushmore. Trump and the National Park Service are going ahead with a massive fireworks display for Friday night despite being warned that it risks causing a wildfire.
The monument, featuring the faces of four presidents, is surrounded by 1,200 acres of forested lands, including ponderosa pines, and lies next to the Black Hills National Forest's Black Elk Wilderness.
The ponderosa forest that surrounds the sculpture is a climax community, which is like the apex predator of plants, according to Popular Mechanics. It's an age-old biosphere that can only be taken down by a catastrophe.
Years of drought have created conditions ripe for just such a catastrophe. June was far hotter and drier than normal in the Black Hills, and there is every indication that these conditions will continue into July.
Fireworks had been shot over Mount Rushmore from 1998 to 2009, when they were canceled due to fears that it could trigger wildfires in drought conditions. Indeed, Trump had to be talked out of staging fireworks displays there in 2018 and 2019 for this very reason.
But South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, through a spokesman, said that the Park Service had determined there was no risk. Never mind that in addition to the risk of wildfire, it has been proven that the fireworks contaminate the nearby groundwater and surface water.
That decision has people who are actually in the know up in arms. Cheryl Schreier, the former superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Park, told The Washington Post that no matter what the Park Service and the White House say, this event is a bad idea due to the risk of wildfires and water pollution. She’s also alarmed that social distancing won’t be implemented for the event.
Bill Gabbert, the former fire management officer for Rushmore and six other parks in the area, was even more blunt. He told the AP and South Dakota News Watch that a fireworks display at Rushmore is simply too dangerous because ponderosa pines are highly flammable.
Then again, we’re talking about a president who insisted on holding a big rally indoors in a state that had become a hot zone. So it’s no surprise that he has no qualms about putting the area around a national monument at risk for a wildfire. No soul. No heart. No conscience.